New Berlin Plastics expanding to keep up with 65% jump in sales

New Berlin Plastics Inc. signed a lease on a second building, adding 100,000 square feet to its manufacturing and warehousing space, to meet increased overall demand as its molding sales grew 65 percent in the last year.

After working in a combined manufacturing and warehouse space, New Berlin started using a third-party warehouse for storage as it grew, Karl Held, business development manager, told Plastics News.

"We're at the point where we see the need for additional machines," Held said. "There's no place else to put them" but the new building, located two blocks from the company's existing facility.

With 12 loading docks, the building close to its existing headquarters in New Berlin, Wis., is "perfectly suited to help us meet our customers' … growing needs," a March 2 news release said.

New Berlin expects to begin manufacturing in the space in about six months.

"We've been planning ahead so we don't run into capacity constraints," Joseph Mechery, vice president of sales, said in the release.

Once the new building is cleaned and prepared for occupancy, New Berlin will start the first phase of its build-out by installing racking and warehouse equipment to house the inventory that is currently being stored off-site, it said. It will add new presses and cranes next.

The size ranges of these machines will be dependent on the needs of the customers, the release said.

"If you're thinking about moving work to us and you need a specific tonnage press to produce your parts, now's the time to have those conversations with us," Jim Schneberger, president, said in the release. "Your input can help us to invest in the right presses that will meet your needs.

"We plan to use the new facility to mold parts that have low complexity and long production runs," Schneberger added. "In other words, jobs that require minimal labor. More complex jobs that require secondary operations and value-added services will stay in our existing facility."

Even "with the automotive industry being down," Held said, New Berlin saw growth in automotive, consumer products like electronics and other products for watercraft, motorcycles, off-road vehicles and heavy machinery.

"Managing the processes within the company so that we're able to be agile … and flexible," he said, "that's allowed us to execute very effectively while markets are not really optimal."

Both new and old customers "feel we're a key supplier to them," he added. "There's been a lot of work done by leadership throughout the organization to set the foundation in place to be able to effectively continue onboarding growth at a steady pace without negatively impacting our ability to continue delivering an exceptional experience for our customers."

Another 10 percent of New Berlin's overall growth has been in transfer tooling activity, Held said.

"As market conditions have continued to be chaotic, there's some uncertainty and risk in the markets," he said. "We're seeing companies hold off on diving into new product development projects and there's more quoting activity around transfer opportunities."

"We think that's due to several factors, including labor and capacity constraints. Some molders haven't been able to keep up with the recent spike in business," Mechery said. "[Customers] don't hesitate to move additional part numbers to us when the need arises. Depending on the severity of the situation, in some cases, we can have transfer tooling up and running in as little as 24 hours after it arrives."

New Berlin is hiring in shipping and receiving to manage the two locations as manufacturing ramps up, Held said.

"Early on, we targeted the jobs where human labor didn't provide much value-add and we automated them," Mechery said. "That enabled us to make better use of our workforce. The current labor crunch isn't affecting us as much as some molders.

"Most of the molders we compete with rely on an automation house to come in for troubleshooting problems and maintaining their robotics," he added. "That can cause a lot of downtime for their customers, especially because these vendors are facing labor shortages just like everyone else today."